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Friday, February 27, 2009

Just blogging cause I want to show everyone a close colleague of mine's new-born baby boy. Riley Willam Stephens was born on 28th Jan 2009. He was just a little over 3kg. Meagan brought him in yesterday and everyone was going goo-goo and ga-ga all over him. He's just about turning one month old and like all babies was sleeping most of the time. Anyway here's some cute photos of him, except for the top left hand one, the rest were all taken by his mommy.

Look at the photos she took of him lar, so free yah! Can set him in a small box and lie him on top of his teddy bear etc, but how CUTE though! Even darling was saying how adorable he was. There were more photos, but I wasn't sure if I should put all of them up, so just picked a few.

He's just so tiny! As compare to my sweet pies: nephew Desmond and niece Felicia when they were a month old, Riley was much smaller in size. (Of course I really wanna meet my cutie "grand-nephew" Jayden, sometime soon as well. ;) Anyway no one dared to carry Riley except me. I had "training" before hor when mum and I sort of looked after Desmond and Felicia occasionally when they were babies, so it was no problems. He slept soundly for a good 10-15mins in my arms before waking up feeling grouchy, and then I decided it was time his mommy had him back. :p

Well on to tennis lesson update at Clayton, it was good and darling and I have decided to continue taking lessons there. He even told me today after dinner that once a fortnight didn't seemed enough and that he actually feels like having it every week instead, haha. I guess we can work something out with the coach. Only down point is that the uni court rentals are pretty expensive at $14 per hour. Even as a member you have to pay. No doubt the rate might be discounted, but usually when you join other tennis clubs, you can play for free anytime. So boo to this down point. :( Anyway on the first lesson I was actually a bit uncomfortable with the coach as the previous coach actually let me explore other playing options like single-handed back hand. But the clayton coach said that woman usually don't do that as they need the power with both hands. So he kinda wanted to change me back to double back hand. So I'm still kinda like stuck in between both tactics but am glad he isn't too pushy and is slowly letting me adapt myself to the technique I much prefer.

I also just join the Monash Uni Tennis Club (which is affiliated to the Monash Uni Clayton Courts, duhhh) today so I can play in the winter comps! How exciting, I mean I haven't played in comps for a year and have been wanting to go back for ages. So these days, it's all 3 days a week at the gym and maybe another playing tennis. But yeah I'm still as chubby as ever and have not lost any weight.. :( Ah well I guess it's hard to lose weight when you're living in bliss. :p Yes yes I know, I am trying to console myself. :p

Monday, February 16, 2009

Howdy everyone, my "sunshine" is back and thanks to the dear encouragement of my dear girls and cousin, I feel much better regarding the parent issue in the previous post. Anyway hoped everyone had a great Valentine's day both singles and couples as it's not just a day about couples in love, it's also about showing your love to your family and best friends. ;) Darling and I spent the day catching up with each other since he just came back from Singapore the day before. We did some shopping in Southland and then bought food back for a home-cooked candle light dinner.

Nothing else beats a nice home-cooked dinner prepared by the charming and loving chef, and with the extra touch of the candles in their vintage candle holders which I got as a farewell gift from my previous company.

And a close-up of the nice pan-fried salmon with capers, broccoli and grilled tomatoes with cheese. Mmmnnn yummy, and even darling Jasper had his royal taster's role fulfilled by having some of the food as well. :D

After that, we rented a movie to watch on Foxtel: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Honestly I much prefer the previous ones, this latest one was just lame. I mean flying saucers and aliens? Whatever happened to the good old ancient artifacts and mythology? Have plot writers just run out of good ideas already? Speaking of which I also watched Bride Wars with a colleague a week ago. That was a chick flick alright but still it was funny and had a good storyline and I especially love the ending that two best friends didn't fall out because their plotting against each other before the wedding. But that plotting actually helped one of them figured out that her husband-to-be really wasn't "the one". Anyway it's one good movie to catch with your girlfriends and you can ogle at the Tiffany ring and Vera Wang gown. :p

On to another topic: Tennis; my favourite sport. As you might know I have been playing since end 2006 and have joined some local comps and stuff in Gippsland. When we first moved down to Melbourne, my ex coach recommended me to a coach he knew at Nottinghill tennis club in Glen Waverley. Now it all started out fine at first (with the coaching I mean). But then because I wasn't "as important" as the wannabe kid star players, the coach kept changing my time slots and then eventually passed me on to his son. Then his son had some emotional problems while moving house and stopped contacting me. I thus had to contact the father again and he fitted me in one of his "precious time slot".

So all seemed fine until the weeks near Christmas when I had to skip a lesson or two as I wanted to spend more time with mum. Mr Coach then got unhappy and said I should just keep my coaching lessons on a casual basis. And I thought to myself. "What a petty and arrogant person!". And so I let the matter rest and thought I'll contact him again in the new year. And guess what? Mr Petty refuses to answer my call or sms. I couldn't be bothered anymore. Tennis may be my love, but that doesn't mean I have to beg someone for it. There are heaps other better coaches out there who are willing to teach whoever wants to excel.

And so darling and I have been looking around for other tennis clubs to join since then. When he bought a new racket for himself over the weekend, we decided to try out the clay courts near our place. I have always only ever played on hard courts and this was my first time in the clay court. Gotta say play in a clay court is certainly much different that in a hard court. The balls are slower and the ball can suddenly change direction depending on how it hits the clay.

Clay Court - usually made of crushed stone or brick. Cheaper and faster to build but more expensive to maintain as they need to be rolled over to preserve flatness and spray water on it before and after play.

Hard Court - Basically just hard concrete but more expensive as you have to bring in special concrete to build the courts, but cheaper to maintain.

At the end of the 1 1/2 hour on Valentine's day evening, we decided that was the first and last time we're gonna play on clay courts. No doubt it was also fun, but I wasn't used to it and slide and fell to the floor on my bum once and Darling just stood there laughing at me. :\ But haha that wasn't the main reason; when we finally finished playing, our shoes and outfits were all reddish brown! All the sliding and running for the balls had turned us into dirty, dusty bums. I had to go home and scrub off the stains of our shoes and clothes like hell and figured, "No I wouldn't want to be doing this all the time". :p I just found out about the Hard courts at the Monash Clayton campus today and made an enquiry. So darling's accompanying me for a lesson with the new coach this friday (who happens to be an Asian who's Singaporean, haha). I just hope everything turns out better this time. :)

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Happy Lunar New Year everyone, it's day 9 of the Lunar New Year, which is also known as "Chu1 Jiu3" in mandarin. This year was a quiet celebration as most of our friends are all back home in Singapore/Malaysia. Darling was supposed to go back on the eve as well, but because the company needed him during the Australian Open, he postponed his flight to a week later. And so as I'm typing now, he's about 7000kms away from me.

My dear chaboh Joewiz's younger brother came down from Leongatha to join us for a mini reunion dinner at aunty's - Wah Kee restaurant in Clayton. There were just four of us including Ammie. It was a small gathering but we ate to our hearts delight, just couldn't be bothered taking photos though. Prior to the dinner in the afternoon, darling and I made our way to Springvale - the vietnamese/chinese area in Melbourne for beef noodles. Being CNY eve that day, there was a carnival going on with lots of rides for kids and stalls selling food. And not to forget Lion Dance - a popular thing during the festive season.

I was pretty happy as I love my "Bak Kua" during CNY and we found a stall selling it. They call them Honey Pork/Beef Jerky over here and boy are they expensive at $2.50 a piece! Yeah they don't go by $ per kg, they go by per piece! In the end I bought 10 pieces just to satisfy my cravings. Of course they naturally didn't taste as good as those back home. :p

And that was sort of all of the CNY "celebration" we had. When you're not back in your home country, it just doesn't really feel the same. Mum sent me photos of my brother, sis-in-law, cousins, grand dad, nephews and nieces and updating me all about what was going on with the family back there. And then of course it doesn't fail to get to the point of my parents hinting when are they gonna be grand-parents as they sort of get all jealous about everyone else around them being grandpas and grandmas already, which brings me to the next topic - about why I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon.

As those who follow my blog would know, the boyfriend's parents and I never got along. Especially after the "show-down" his mum and I had back in Dec 2007, we never communicated since. In short she sort of lectured us like we were a bunch of 10 year olds caught kissing or something and doesn't really want her son to have a girlfriend. Over-possessive or controlling? I won't stoop down to her level to mention the mean things she said. Basically the boyfriend's parents just want their son to achieve well for his future but without a better half - unless of course maybe they want his better half to be one they hand-pick.

4 years of us being in the relationship together, yet they still always talk about matters/plans that revolve around him alone and not around us. It's like somehow they hope that I'm just a passing phase in their son's live and will leave him in the near future. To them, he will always be their little perfect baby son of which no one is good enough for him. From their obvious attitudes and behaviours, the "M" word is out of the question (at least for some time) as they will probably go nuts even hearing it. Is this God's way of testing our love for each other? A perfect relationship - too perfect till there must be some who want to destroy it?